IBM researchers get closer to nanotech hard drives

We're not going to front like we understand exactly how it works, but two IBM researchers in California have announced that they've gotten closer to controlling the orientation and magnetic spin of individual iron atoms on a copper surface, which would have huge implications for nanotech storage -- imagine the basic tech in your hard drive shrunk down the molecular level. At the same time, a different set of IBM researchers in Switzerland have discovered a way to make individual molecules act like "switches" without altering the framework of the molecule, which could lead to molecular logic circuits. IBM is reluctant to even hypothesize ways these discoveries could be applied -- Andreas Heinrich, one of the California scientists, compared such speculation to asking the same question to "people in the '70s, where they had a roomful of computing equipment that could basically do what you can do nowadays on your cell phone" -- but we're not so shy: this obviously means we're closer to a 1TB flash iPhone. You heard it here first.

[Via Yahoo!]

[dee-dee-deetarded @ Sep 1st 2007 3:49PM]

so what does that picture of hatching fish eggs have to do with it? ha first comment

[waiownsyou @ Sep 1st 2007 4:06PM]

1TB iPhones sound hot! Too bad Apple would probably charge a premium and sell them each for like $3,000.

[HARITORIHANZO @ Sep 1st 2007 4:23PM]

me thinks you inderestimate this technology, if this is pulled off correctly we are one step closer to a 1 Petabyte iPhone, Truly store all you music in lossless atrac.

[Bloobie @ Sep 1st 2007 5:24PM]

You mean AAC, not the now-abandoned-by-Sony ATRAC.

[HARITORIHANZO @ Sep 1st 2007 7:09PM]

i did yes but its late in the UK and im tired, and i think i was looking at my old minidisc player at the time, lol, sorry.

[ark_v2 @ Sep 1st 2007 5:07PM]

Why an iPhone? Why?!

[Blaine Oliver @ Sep 1st 2007 5:23PM]

That guy makes sense ftw.

[Bloobie @ Sep 1st 2007 5:25PM]

Why not? Stop being such a hater. :)

[ark_v2 @ Sep 2nd 2007 12:15AM]

I'm not a hater, I'm just tired of i- this i- that

[dfsdfsfsf @ Sep 1st 2007 5:23PM]

Hell yea 1TB Iphones, I

[DCLocal @ Sep 1st 2007 8:25PM]

Hell, 1TB anything!

[The Cop @ Sep 1st 2007 11:26PM]

I am sure former Idaho Senator Larry Craig, would love to have a 1TB iPHONE for his "bathroom breaks". No need to tap on walls when you have 1TB of PORN!

[Peronthious @ Sep 1st 2007 5:46PM]

Excellent, more developments in the spintronics realm. It'll probably be at least another 7 years before this takes off, but it's good to see some progress.

[DarkAardvark @ Sep 1st 2007 6:23PM]

if they really wanted a 1TB iPhone, they could do it with the technology at hand.
IBM's Millipede = 1TB / in^2. kthx

[Ron Smith @ Sep 1st 2007 6:33PM]

I think one of the biggest and soonest benefactors of such technology will be the medical and aerospace industries. A plane wing covered with microscopic computers and sensors is an enticing prospective, as is a human body full of computers that can transmit your health status and also administer drugs in specific places just by having a doctor e-mail the prescription to your body. Allot better than any fricken Ipod/Iphone.

[inlogic @ Sep 1st 2007 6:35PM]

ffs I'm sick of seeing not-so-subliminal iPhone marketing campaing in this blog. How much does Apple pay you guys? Enough with this already.

[ark_v2 @ Sep 2nd 2007 12:29AM]

Can't blame them. Subliminal messages only have a 10% effect while direct marketing has the other 90%.

[Melenor @ Sep 1st 2007 6:46PM]

This is the kind of revolution that can't come soon enough. Give these guys some federal funding - anything that would bring this closer to commercial reality.

Sometimes I'm very glad to have been born in this lifetime.

[Xee @ Sep 1st 2007 10:22PM]

Sometimes?

Does that mean the rest of the time you regret it?

[zuricher @ Sep 1st 2007 10:07PM]

rüeschlikon olé

[Yubastard @ Sep 2nd 2007 3:35AM]

lol, you guys rock! :D

[jason @ Sep 2nd 2007 9:32AM]

I wonder what sort of power-consumption it would use? Not only is the goal to make things smaller, but to make things more power efficient.

Plus they are talking about switches, so it is getting into microprocessor territory, not just harddrive territory.

[David Juaquin @ Sep 4th 2007 12:58AM]

I always wanted my first comment to be THE first comment but wtvr. I'm only commenting cuz thats some incredible information.

[David Juaquin @ Sep 4th 2007 1:03AM]

yea